


A charmed life

by Sheffield



Series: A charmed life [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 17:07:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11902275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheffield/pseuds/Sheffield
Summary: There are several crossovers where baby Harry Potter is raised by Sherlock and John.  This is one of them.  I have driven a coach and horses through the timeline of both universes, but in principle imagine that (1) John and Sherlock become a couple after ASIP (2) Harry is orphaned just before TBB and (3) Mycroft is the royal family's liaison with the Ministry of Magic.





	A charmed life

Once upon a time there was a doctor who was also a soldier who was wounded in a war. He came to live in Baker Street with a mad genius consulting detective, followed the clues from a pink suitcase, shot a man who was trying to kill the mad genius (but don't tell Lestrade) and heard the name "Moriarty" for the first time.  
Then the Doctor and the Genius went back to the flat they shared in Baker Street, kissed on the staircase, fell into bed together, and lived happily ever after. Even Mrs Hudson was happy, because she finally had something to brag about when Mrs Turner next door went on about her married ones.  
Everything changed one morning when Mycroft kidnapped the Doctor again in one of his big black cars.  
"Doctor Watson," the man who was the British Government said, "I have a number of things to tell you that are going to be hard for you to hear."  
"No, no, wait… let me guess. Hurt my brother and I'll kill you?"  
Mycroft looked pained. "I thought that was implicit in our previous conversations? Nevertheless. I wonder if you have ever heard mention in your family of a gentleman by the name of Evans?"  
"No, can't think I have… wait, what? Do you mean Uncle Stanley?"  
Mycroft looked pained, again. It was, John was starting to realise, his default expression. Not quite "resting bitchface" so much as "resting constipation".  
"Stanley Evans, quite. Would it surprise you to know that he was, in fact, your biological father?"  
"Uncle Stanley? My biological… he… no. What the hell, Mycroft?"  
"Bear with me. The… provenance… of Stanley Evans' relationship with your mother and therefore with you we can come to in a moment. As you may know, he moved away and lost contact with your family when you were quite a small child. You may not know that he went on to have two daughters. The younger of those daughters was killed in a tragic incident a few months ago, leaving a one year old infant. The infant was placed with his aunt, the elder of the two daughters of Stanley Evans, where it was thought he would thrive alongside his cousin. Unfortunately his has proved not to be the case. The aunt's family are wholly unsuitable to raise a child and have, in fact, been arrested for child abuse. You may wish to know for example that they thought it appropriate to house their young charge in a cupboard under the stairs. Ah. I see we are arriving…"  
John looked up and out of the window.   
"Mycroft… why are we here…?"

Buckingham Palace was slightly shabbier than he had expected, inside. He wondered if he could get away with nicking an ashtray or something for Sherlock, by way of a souvenir. After all, being thrown into the Tower for treasonous larceny wouldn't be the strangest thing that had happened to him so far today.  
"Thank you Mycroft. I think Mr Watson and I will do very well on our own."  
"Ma'am."  
Mycroft withdrew, and John Watson found himself standing at attention in front of a small elderly woman. He focused on the turquoise dress, triple string of pearls and diamond and pearl brooch rather than the face he had known all his life if only from postage stamps.  
"Please sit down Captain Watson: this must all be very strange to you."  
He fell down more than sat, but once their eyes met at the same level he found himself liking, as well as admiring, the woman behind them.  
"Now. We don't have much time but you're going to need a demonstration, and probably a stiff drink. No, stay where you are."  
She rang a bell and the strangest man John Watson had ever seen walked in. He was about three feet tall, wearing a robe like a graduate gown, and carrying a pointed stick. He bowed to Her Majesty and then took up position on the carpet opposite her, with John at his right and a small silk-covered sofa, matching the one John was sitting on, to his left.  
"An elephant first, I think, please. I always like that one."  
The small man brandished his stick and the empty green sofa directly opposite to John vanished. In its place was a baby elephant. John found himself on his feet and was embarassed to realise the girlish squeaking noise had also come from him.  
It was an elephant, he thought. His brain had stopped working properly, because it was telling him that… the Queen… had summoned a dwarf… with a wand… who had transfigured a sofa… into an elephant. Mycroft must have slipped him a hallucinogen in the car, because as if meeting the queen wasn't weird enough there was no freaking way sofas turn into elephants…  
"Sit down, Captain Watson, and drink some whisky immediately," she said, and she was the Queen, wasn't she, so he did. The whisky tasted real. I mean, the glass was that heavy, cut glass that feels sharp on your tongue, and the whisky was definitely one of the fiery peppery ones, not the languid smoky ones – Talisker perhaps? And the elephant was… thing was, it smelled of elephant. Hallucinations don't smell real, do they?  
"I think the elephant may have been a bit too much. Can we have the sofa again, please?"  
The wand flourished again, and the room was back to being an ordinary room. Or at least as ordinary a room as you get when you're in Buckingham Palace talking to the Queen. And a dwarf. With a magic wand.  
John drank the rest of the whisky.  
"Magic is real. There's an entire culture of magic users living quietly and separately amongst us. Do you believe me?"  
"Ma'am. Yes ma'am."  
"Name an object."  
"Um… bagpipes?" What? His brain had melted.  
The sofa was now a set of bagpipes.  
"And another"  
"A big block of cheese and I have no idea why I said that, sorry."  
But there was, indeed, a block of cheese, around six foot tall and six feet wide, where the sofa used to be.  
"I think that will suffice, thank you."  
The little man (Dwarf? Goblin? Elf?) flourished his wand and the cheese was a sofa again. Then he bowed and left in the ordinary way, walking, opening the door before him and shutting it behind him, the whole thing.  
"I'm sorry this has to be such a brusque introduction to the world of magic but I really have very little time this morning. The users of magic have been living alongside us for centuries, quietly, unseen. Mycroft is my liaison with their government, led by their Minister of Magic. I have various protections around me, as do some of the senior members of my government like Mycroft. I am going to give you this…"  
It was a small black bead on a black string.  
"…and tell you to put it round your neck. Do it now, please. Because I'm your queen and I say so."  
"Ma'am. Yes ma'am."  
"There now. It is a talisman, rather like my own – " and she tapped her triple string of pearls with a manicured fingernail "which protects the wearer from undue magical influence, and which will appear as something appropriate to your circumstances should anyone notice you wearing it. It is Our Royal Command that you keep this talisman on you at all times, that you keep the existence of magic quiet, and that you take charge of your… half-nephew. His name is Harry Potter."  
There was no bell this time, but Mycroft was back in the room holding a baby, almost a toddler, around a year old. He had a scar on his forehead like a bolt of lightning.  
"Harry's parents were part of the world of magic. His uncle and aunt are not. I am told that it is likely, when Harry is eleven, he will receive a letter inviting him to attend a school of witchcraft and wizardry, but until then it seems he is at risk of magical harm unless he is living with a blood relative. Absent the abusive aunt, that means you, Captain Watson. The members of the magical community are as much Our Subjects as the rest of us and I do not approve of any of Our children being persecuted for their background. It is necessary, for reasons which you do not need to know but which I assure you are entirely real, for him to live with a blood relative and it is important that his whereabouts remain unknown by the magical community. It is therefore Our Command that you adopt your nephew and raise him as an ordinary small boy. Do you have any questions?"  
"Ma'am. Yes ma'am. I mean, no ma'am."  
And this is how Harry Potter came to live in Baker Street with the Soldier Doctor.

 

Sherlock put the bow down and rested the violin by his side. "Ah, you're back," he said.  
"Have been for nearly an hour," John said, finishing assembling the cot. He made sure Sherlock was actually looking in his direction and gestured towards the playpen.  
"This is Harry. He's my orphan nephew. I'm adopting him. I thought he could have my room upstairs. Mycroft's people have just about finished childproofing the flat while you were lost to the world, and apparently Mrs Hudson has another flat downstairs that Mycroft is going to rent for you to use as a lab. Problem?"  
"Why are you wearing dogtags?"  
And this is how Harry Potter came to live with not one but two uncles, the Soldier Doctor Watson and his partner the Mad, Mad Genius, Sherlock Holmes.


End file.
